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If your marketing isn’t working, there are two likely culprits: your target audience is wrong or your messaging. Most often, it’s your messaging.

If you want your marketing to get a good return on investment, you need a compelling message. One that clearly explains what problem you solve, who you help, and what action they need to take next.

My 7-step magnetic messaging framework will help you clarify your message so it cuts through a crowded marketplace like a hot knife through butter.

Step 1: Make your messaging about your prospect. Not you.

The number one mistake that business owners make is crafting messaging that serves their ego. It’s not about you. No one cares how many years you’ve been in business, or how many awards you’ve won.

Your prospect cares about what’s in it for them. They want to know how quickly you can make their problems go away.

So if you want your marketing messaging to stand out from every other advertising campaign, you need to take the focus off you and shine the light on your prospect.

I’ll give you an example of good verse bad messaging.

Bad Messaging Example

WELCOME TO THE HOME OF SELF-PUBLISHING.

With over 20 years of experience helping authors self-publish their novel, you’re in good hands.

Why is this messaging bad?

1. There’s nothing compelling about this messaging. It’s stock, standard, and boring.
2. It focuses on you, and not on the person wanting to get self published.
3. It’s forgettable.

Good Messaging Example

GET SELF-PUBLISHED IN 90 DAYS

The easiest way to get your manuscript formatted for printing, distributed on Amazon, and hitting bestseller lists.

Why this messaging works?

1. It’s compelling. For someone who has probably sent their manuscript to every major publishing house and heard no, this is the dream.
2. It tells the prospect exactly what they can expect from you.
3. It gives the prospect a vision to buy into.

Step 2: Make your message easily understood.

Can a 12-year-old understand what you do, how it makes their life better, and what step to take next?

So many businesses think their marketing needs to sound professional or academic. This is a huge mistake. Even if your ideal prospect is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, they are far more likely to respond to a message that’s full of personality than one that’s inflated with industry jargon.  

When we try to be clever or verbose, we create confusion, and a confused mind says no.

If your prospect can’t quickly understand what you do, they’re not going to spend hours trying to figure it out. They aren’t going to set up a meeting, so you can give them more information. They’re going to click away and go to a competitor.

• Keep your messaging simple.
• Use words and concepts that are easy to understand.
• Run your marketing writing through Hemingways App to check that a 12-year-old could understand it.

Simplify your messaging, and the marketplace will reward you.

Step 3: Make your message believable.

So many businesses claim to be the leader in their market place. They’ll use words like number 1, award-winning, leading provider, best of breed, blah, blah, blah.

Your prospects don’t buy it. You have to make them believe it. And you can only do that by proving you’re the real deal.

• What awards have you won? Industry awards legitimize your services.
• What recognition have you received? Have you been featured in the press? If Forbes Magazine or the New York Times has featured you, that’s pretty compelling to a customer.
• What do your customers have to say? Can you use customer testimonials, whether written and video, to back up what you’re saying?

You’ll know your message is believable when you’ve got low friction in the sales process.

If you get a lot of objections or people asking question after question that’s usually a sign they don’t believe you can deliver what you say or implement what you’re offering.

So let’s look at a few examples of good vs bad messaging.

Bad Messaging

From Startup to Six Figures in 3 Months

Million Dollar Side Hustle in 30 Days

Launch & Grow Your Podcast to 2 Million Downloads in 2 Weeks

Why don’t I believe these offers?

• I know how long it takes to build to six figures. It’s rare to hit six figures in 3 months. So I have doubts.
• If hitting six figures felt like a pipe dream, launching a million dollar side hustle in 30 days sounds like a fairy tale. Firstly, what type of side hustle are we talking about? eCommerce, maybe. But for most businesses, this isn’t achievable.
• Unless you’re a well-known personality with a massive social and email following, launching and hitting 2 Million downloads feels unrealistic. As a relatively unknown person, I just don’t see this happening.

Good Messaging

5 Simple Systems To Organise and Scale Your Business

From $1K Months to $30K Months: How to Scale your Side Hustle

How to Start a Dropshipping Business in 6 Simple Steps

Why this offer works?

• The promise is more believable.
• There is no time limit to achieving my goal.
• It’s specific and offers a proven process to growing your business.

So ask yourself, does my messaging feel believable?

Step 4: Make your messaging interesting and unique.

Why should I buy from you instead of your direct competitor?

That’s the question on your prospect’s mind. If you sell an apple and your competitor sells an apple they’re going to choose the company that gives them the best deal. You don’t want your prospect making decisions based on pricing. That’s a losing game.

You want to give them an apples to oranges comparison. Find a proposition that makes you stand out from the competition.

For example, someone who is dropshipping has to compete with major distributors like eBay, Amazon, etc. You need to find a way to get a prospect to choose you over old faithful.

It could be that you deliver outstanding customer service. Or you give a considered, honest opinion of the product. There’s no trying to bulls$$t your audience. They know they can trust you to steer them in the right direction.

For example, let’s look at the Make My Shave brand.

It’s a razor subscription specifically for women. We had DollarShave.com for men, and now MakeMyShave.com.au for women.

• It’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it’s a subscription model.
• 5% of every sale goes to reforestation projects in Australia.
• The razor handle is reusable, and used razor heads are sustainable disposed of.
• They prioritize sustainable packaging.

They’re targeting a female audience that wants the convenience of having their razorblades delivered monthly without them having to think about it, but also knowing that their contribution is going towards a good cause.

Remember, specificity sells.

So how can you make your messaging interesting and unique?

Step 5: Deal with their wants and needs

Getting in shape is a really good example of dealing with a prospects’ wants and needs. Most will tell you they want to feel good about themselves. Maybe they want to drop a size or two.

You know what they want. Now what do they need to achieve those results. Chances are, they have to make pretty serious lifestyle changes like exercising more regularly, and watching what they eat.

This is the part that a lot of people don’t enjoy. They want the good thing (a beach ready body) without the bad thing (hard, sweaty workout sessions at the gym, achey muscles, and a meal plan that misses all the foods they love).

Your message needs to demonstrate to prospects that you can deliver the good and limit the bad.

If you make promises you can’t deliver on, that will damage your brand reputation. It takes years to build a good opinion of your business, and it can be destroyed over night.

I’ll give you another example.

Say your company creates an app that makes retail in-store execution easier for sales reps and their office-bound managers.

The Managers want to be able to track their sales reps to make sure they’re doing their rounds.

What they need, is greater shelf presence, and the ability to action in-store orders immediately so they can increase sales.

Your marketing messaging would need to answer their wants and needs. You app helps limit no-shows, and increase in-bound orders.

So look at your message and ask yourself, what are the wants and needs I have to address in my message to compel prospects to reach out to me?

Step 6: Be clear about who you help.

This is something that so many businesses get wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I hear a client say things like, “we help everyone. ” And maybe you do. But you can’t afford to target everyone. You don’t have a big enough marketing budget.

A prospect should see your message and think it’s made just for them.

But it can’t happen if you’re all things to all people.

Here’s how to know if your messaging is to general.

• Your listing a laundry list of products and services like, we do in-bound marketing, we do SEO, we do Pay-Per-Click, we do strategy, we do PR.
• You’re appealing to a wide audience, rather than a tight niche. For example, We help authors get self-published. But what field do you specialize in? Children’s books, business books, romantic books, STEM books? As a published author of a marketing & business book, I don’t want a generalist helping me to launch my second book. I want someone who specializes in my area of expertise, and knows how to turn my book into a bestseller.

To recap.

Your prospects will actively seek out a specialist. If you’re everything to everyone, you’re a generalist, and you won’t attract high-value, well-paying customers.

Step 7: Tell your prospect what to do next.

What physical visible action do we want your prospect to take?

When it comes to creating a call to action, don’t overcomplicate things. Make sure you have one, clear call to action.

That could be opting into your newsletter, downloading your lead magnet, trialing your software, booking a demo or a free strategy call, buying a product, whatever.

One message, one call to action.

If you have multiple calls to action, create separate campaigns or you run the risk of your prospect doing nothing.

Here’s an example of a poor CTA.

In this case, there is no call to action. Sure, it’s a pretty picture, but what is the next step I should take.

There’s no phone number. No email address. I had to keep scrolling to the bottom of the website before I found contact details.

So if your next step is for a customer to book a consult, make it easy for them to do that.

If you don’t give them an easy way to connect, they will do nothing.

Now here’s an example of a site with a clear call to action.

Not only do I know who this offer is targeted at, but I know exactly what step to take next to start building operating systems that scale my business.

Don’t make your prospects waste precious time figuring out how to get in touch with you.

Tell them what to do next.

Apply the 7-Step Messaging Framework to your business

When it comes to messaging, clarity is king. Always choose clarity over cleverness.

Start by reviewing and refining your marketing messages. Pull up your website and ask yourself:

• Is it clear what I do?
• Do I clearly demonstrate how my services or product will improve my prospects’ lives?
• What is the step I want them to take next? Is that clear?

Take a look at your social media posts, emails, SEO articles, pay-per-click ads, billboards, whatever. Is it clear to the reader what step you want them to take next?

If not, review and refine.

What do Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile, and Wrexham AFC have in common?

Ryan Reynolds.

Devilishly handsome, super talented, and outrageously funny, Reynolds is arguably one of the biggest movie stars of our generation.

Deadpool. The Adam Project. Red Notice. Free Guy.

Everything Reynolds touches turns into a multimillion-dollar success story (except The Green Lantern, but I digress).

This success isn't limited to blockbuster movies. Reynolds has an uncanny ability to take a little-known start-up and turn it into an overnight sensation.

Take Aviation Gin. Reynolds loved the American gin so much that he bought the company and turned it into one of the fastest-growing gins in the world before selling it for an estimated $610 million.

So how did he do it?

By using his signature blend of sarcasm, biting wit, and self-deprecating humor!

Reynolds didn't just buy the company. He became the main attraction. From hilarious social media posts to clever ad campaigns, Reynold's made sure to inject his personality into every facet of the brand's marketing.

Whether it was sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of the gin-making process or recounting amusing anecdotes, Reynolds used masterful storytelling to captivate and entertain audiences all over the world.  

His willingness to show his goofy side and ability to authentically connect with audiences made the brand instantly relatable and approachable.

Reynolds did what many thought impossible.

He took a seemingly dull and dry industry and turned it into the kind of entertainment that people couldn't get enough of.

He also isn't afraid to be reactive or ruffle feathers.

After the disastrous Peloton Holiday commercial, The Gift that Gives Back, Reynolds convinced the Peloton Wife to star in a cheeky Aviation Gin ad.

It was pure genius. Not only did the commercial go viral, but it had people buzzing about the company.

Then he did it again with the Nick Cannon Vasectomy commercial.

Dubbed the most fertile man in entertainment, having fathered 12 children, Reynold's convinced Cannon to take a starring role in his new Father's Day ad. It was an instant hit.

But it's not just those knowing looks or Reynold's mischievous smile that has customers raving about Aviation Gin.

It's the level of personalization that he delivers. It’s not unusual for Reynolds to respond directly to fans on social media. It’s experiences like this which result in priceless word-of-mouth marketing and transform mere customers into raving advocates.

Of course, none of this would matter if Aviation Gin didn't live up to the hype. Luckily, it's a great product and has won numerous accolades.

Would it have been the success story it is without Reynolds' signature magnetic charm?

Doubtful.

So what lesson can we take away from Ryan Reynolds

In a world drowning in brands and products, injecting your own unique personality into your business can be the difference between sinking or swimming strongly against the current.

‍Personality matters.

Don't be afraid to show yours in your marketing efforts. Embrace your quirks, engage with your audience, and tell stories they can resonate with.

Be authentic, be entertaining, and most importantly, be you because people don't just buy products; they buy experiences and emotions.

You’re doing what all the experts tell you to. Email your customers frequently. Focus on value. Don’t sell too much. Despite this, your click rate is dismal. Your open rate isn’t much better. And hearing back from a prospect comes as frequently as a blue moon.

You can continue to do what you’ve always done and reap the same underwhelming and frustrating results.

Or you can identify the real reason why your email marketing isn’t working.

You have no email strategy.

That’s right. Your email marketing isn’t working because you have no email strategy. Here’s what I mean by strategy.

• What is the point of your email marketing?
• What specific marketing goal are you trying to achieve with email?
• What do you need to do to achieve that goal?

Without knowing this, you’re shooting arrows in the dark and hoping something hits the bullseye.

For your email campaigns to be successful, follow this 6-step process

Step 1: You Need to Have A Plan

You need to know:

• How often you will mail your subscriber list.
• What time you’ll send your marketing emails.
• What type of emails you’ll send? For example, sales, direct response, free offers, consumer interest, educational, event-based, etc.
• How you will determine the content of those emails?

Because guessing doesn’t get results.

Speak to any marketer; they’ll tell you they’ve played around with timings. They’ve sent emails towards the early evening or at lunchtime. They’ve tested weekdays versus weekends.

They know when their subscribers will most likely read their emails and how many they should send weekly.

Do you?

Step 2: You Need to Understand What Motivates Your Audience

What do they care about? More importantly, what would motivate them to buy what you’re selling?

Your subscribers signed up to your email list for a reason.

For an e-commerce store, it’s to learn of the latest deals or hot new products. For a coaching business, it’s to solve a problem. For a social media consultancy, it’s to get the latest advice about marketing on social and maybe to get a calendar they can use to plan their content.

Your emails are an opportunity to build trust, establish your authority in your field, and demonstrate your ability to get them a result.

• You want to tap into their desires. What do they want most? How can you help them achieve that?
• Play on their emotions. What are they scared of? Have you experienced similar fears, and how did you overcome them?
• Give them a vision to buy into. Show them what their life could look like if they choose your service or product.

Understanding what motivates your audience allows you to deliver a far more personalized experience, and that’s compelling.

Step 3: You Need A Marketing Automation CRM

To build a relationship, you need to stay in touch with your prospects. You have to get them to like you, and that requires showing up in their life.

Once a month is probably not enough.

You need to show up frequently and provide value. Simply sending emails isn’t good enough.

Step 4: You Need to Be Ahead Of The Game

You need to plan things out a couple months in advance. You want to be thinking about what's happening in 3 months time.

If you’re not, you’re constantly playing catch up and you can’t be strategic. You also don’t have the space to analyse what worked and what didn’t. And you can’t reconfigure and test.

This means you won't make crucial changes that could impact sales. So plan your emails in advance.

Step 5: You Need to Be A/B Testing Your Emails

• Do your email subscribers prefer sentence case or lowercase subject lines?
• Do they respond well to emojis?
• Do visuals help or hinder your message?
• Do they prefer to receive emails on certain days of the week?
• Is there a difference in the open rate of a direct response email versus a resource email?

Without A/B testing your emails, you can’t definitively answer these questions, and that’s a problem. Because what you don’t know will hurt the success of your marketing efforts.

We had a client who tripled their open rate by reducing the length of their subject lines to two or three words, changing them into lowercase, and adding emojis.

3x the value. They wouldn’t have known that if they hadn’t tested our theory.

Even after building an entirely new email welcome sequence and course upsell six months later, our copywriter was still A/B testing subject lines and CTAs six months later.

Marketing is never done. It’s iterative. To get the best results, you need to A/B test. Are you?

To create better messages check out this messaging template.

Step 6: You Need to Track Your Numbers

Is your email marketing making you money?

The only way to know that is to track your email analytics, and you need a marketing automation CRM (customer relationship management tool) to do that.

But there are loads on the market. Knowing which to use can be confusing.

Personally, I like Ontraport. It’s more techie, but it has superior analytics. If you’d prefer something a little more user-friendly, I’d invest in ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit.

So every time you push send on a campaign, track and analyze that email’s performance. Take note of the topics your audience connects with. They’re actively telling you what they want to hear more of.

Then use this information to inform your content strategy.

And give your subscribers a chance to respond to you.

How to get more sales through email? 11 top tips.

For your email marketing to be a success, you need the right CRM software and strategy.

Follow these 11 tips for building an email campaign or sending marketing emails your subscribers can't wait to open.

1. Don't Bombard Your Subscribers With Too Many Emails

Remember, you are not the only business entering your subscribers’ mailbox. There needs to be a point to every email you send. Your goal could be to:

• get to know your subscriber better
• get crucial feedback on your product or service
• invite them to a live training/webinar
• share a company/product update
• educate them
• launch a new product or service
• send a promotion

Whatever your reason, make it worth their while. Otherwise, you’ll start getting negative responses, like your emails feel spammy. And you don’t want that.

2. Segment Your Email List For Better Targeting

Specificity sells. People want relevant content. They don’t want generic information.

If you waste their time, you’ll lose them. If you send them content that doesn’t add value, help them solve a problem, or entertain them, you’ll lose them.

You solve this by segmenting your email list in your CRM. If you don’t have a CRM, you need to get one. If you have a CRM, find out how to segment your target audience here.

3. Personalize Your Emails

Your CRM gives you the ability to capture your subscribers’ details and personalize your emails. Take advantage of these features because they will ensure you get a better open rate, click-through rate, and response rate.

96% of businesses state that simply adding your customer’s name in an email subject line or body copy will improve your marketing success.

Learn more about marketing personalization here.

4. Stick to One Topic Per Email

One of the most common mistakes that newbie marketers/businesses make is cramming as much information as possible into a single email.

You will only confuse your readers. And if you confuse them, you lose them.

So if the point of your email is to tell your customers that you’ve added a new feature, that’s the focus of your email. Talk about why you added the feature and how it will deliver a superior customer experience. What can they expect from that feature?

Don’t talk about how many years you’ve been in business or everything else your product does.

One email. One topic.

5. Write Better Email Subject Lines

What’s your hook? The statement or idea that’s going to stand out in your email inbox and get your subscriber to open your email.

Most email campaigns live and die by their subject lines/hooks.

To write a good email hook, look to Twitter for inspiration. It seems like an unlikely place, but Twitter influencers are limited in the number of words they can use. So they have to write very compelling hooks to get your attention.

The formula for a good hook includes the following:

• Keep it short (two or three words), e.g., hiding?, low-hanging fruit, unforgivable, hacking PR
• Make an intriguing statement, e.g., raincheck, ignore the vanity metrics, you’re not famous enough, so disrespectful
• Promise something, e.g., hang with me in Miami, the best way to get loads of free email subscribers, 7 clients in 7 days
• Be controversial, e.g., crying on social media, I won’t apologize for this, I hate IKEA
• Pose a question, e.g., how to get attention, how to segment your audience in 3 minutes, is this your target market?

To write better copy, check out this masterclass.

6. Tell Stories

Facts tell. Stories sell. If you want to sell more with your email marketing, you need to tell good stories.

In my opinion, Laura Belgray is the queen of storytelling. She uses stories as a way to draw you in. They entertain and elicit an emotional response. Often it’s because we can see ourselves in those stories.

So don’t be afraid to share stories from your life with your subscribers.

You can learn more about using storytelling to market your business here.

7. Always Use A Call to Action

Tell your email subscribers what to do next. Is it to respond to you, book a call, trial your product, arrange a demo, fill in a form, or buy?

Highlight it in big and bold. Use all caps. Change the color of the text. Be clear about what you want your email subscriber to do next.

For example:

8. Develop an Email Super Signature

While you don’t have to actively sell in every email, you should never waste a sales opportunity.

An email super signature is the little bit of text that goes below your name at the end of your email.

Use this space to market different services or products. For example, you could set up a free strategy session, or sell a book. Really, the choice is yours. Here’s what mine looks like:

Here's another example of a super signature.

9. Send It From You, Not A No-Reply Email

Don’t use a generic email like info@ when you can use your name. Especially if you’re the face of your brand, using your name is a powerful way to get people on your email list to open your emails.

10. Automate Your Campaigns & Email Marketing

I might be stating the obvious, but you’re human. To function optimally, you need food and rest. Technology doesn’t.

If you want to get more from your email marketing campaigns, you need to automate them. Push play on a welcome sequence in your CRM, and it doesn’t matter if Nicky on the other side of the world subscribes while you’re in dream world.

Your CRM will trigger an email that kicks off the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Now if you did this manually, Nicky would have to wait until you wake up 6 hours later before she gets her first email. And by that time, she may have forgotten about you ☹️

Technology augments your abilities. Use it.

11. Purge Inactive Subscribers on Your Email List

Get rid of the dead weight. The subscribers that never open your emails. They’re not interested in what you’re selling. But by keeping them on your list, you’re paying more money, and you risk impacting your spam rating.

Give them a chance to respond. Send a reactivation email to cold subscribers. If they don’t respond, delete them.

If you found this helpful, you might also like to read our Dos and don'ts of email marketing.

Start refining your email marketing strategy.

Now that you know what makes a good email marketing strategy, it’s time to refine yours.

• What does your email strategy look like?
• How often will you email your subscriber database?
• What CRM will you use?
• What numbers will you track?
• How will you use these marketing insights to inform your content strategy?
• Will you create monthly email campaigns?
• Will you use an email design or stick to plain text? Personally, I prefer the latter.

Don’t forget to A/B test your email marketing. It will help you to improve your email campaigns tenfold.

If you need help refining your email strategy, download our email guide. It’s free.

Every week I get messages like this…

"I would love to be more strategic and target the right clients. I just don’t know how.

"I’ve created landing pages and lead magnets, implemented local SEO and video marketing services, and I’m still unable to find the right fit for my company."

"What are going to be some of the most profitable niches?"

Nailing your niche is foundational to your marketing success. And yet, most new business owners struggle with it.

Many are scared to niche down because they think it’ll limit their pool of prospective clients. It won’t. If you try to target everyone, no one will raise their hand and say, “Yup, that’s for me.”

Your job is to find a sub-culture you can dominate. Because by zeroing in on your sub-niche, you can target and reach a very specific audience, making your marketing 100 times more effective.

So whether you're new to entrepreneurship and are looking for business ideas and potential niches or you're an established brand looking to build your business plan, I'm going to help you find your niche.

Get Our 12-Step Niche Domination Framework for Free

Just tell us where to send it...

We respect your email inbox and will never spam.

How to find your niche

To be clear, you don’t need to use all these options. Finding your niche can be as simple as using two, three, or even four of these options and intersecting them to build a clearer picture of your niche audience.

1. What interests you?

If you’re living for the weekends, you have a job, not a vocation. As cliched as it sounds, the whole point of starting your business is to find something you’re passionate about. I want you to look forward to Mondays, not dread them.

Business isn’t always a smooth ride. You’ll have ups and downs. If you’re doing something you don’t really enjoy, staying committed in the rough times will be challenging.

• What topics interest you? Start by listing five or 10 things you’re deeply interested in.
• Who do you enjoy working with? This can change as your business matures, but having an idea of who you want to work with is vital. So is knowing whom you don’t want to work with.
• What do you have experience in? You are an expert in your field. No matter how long you’ve worked in this industry, you have knowledge and experiences that you can draw on to help others.

For example, I came from an IT and Telecommunications background. To grow my first business, I invested a ton of time and money in learning how to market it. Helping other businesses master marketing to scale became a passion of mine.

2. Use location when relevant

It comes down to who you want to work with and the service you provide.

Are you a brick-and-mortar business serving your local community, or can you target a global audience?

Service-based businesses like coaching, copywriting, accounting, therapy, design, VA, and PR can work for international companies. Obviously, you still need to know the market you’re serving, but the location is less important. The same goes for online stores. Provided you can deliver your goods globally, you're not bound by location.

In comparison, restaurants, lawyers, doctors, and home-gardening services rely on their local communities to scale. So you’d location-based advertising to strategically target your audience.

Knowing your location determines the URL you choose for your business. Someone based in New Zealand and selling to the NZ market will choose a co.nz over a .com.

Is location important to your business niche?

3. Decide what demographic you’ll target

Who is most likely to buy your product or service? By knowing their age, sex, income, and interests, you can tailor your content to their lived experience, and start building an engaged audience.

For example, if you’re going to be selling high-ticket items (thousands of dollars), you’ll likely target a more affluent customer. Perhaps they’re older, with an established business.

But if you’re selling stretchy pants similar to Lulu Lemon, you might target new moms whose bodies are still changing but who want to feel comfortable in whatever they wear.

Start by answering these questions.

• What is your audience’s earning potential?
• Would you prefer to work with men or women, or does gender not matter?
• What age would you connect with most?

What interests are relevant to your business?

4. Explore potential shared values

You want your audience to stop and say, “hey, that’s for me.” They don’t want to follow wishy-washy brands. They want to buy from businesses that share their values.

If you’re in the outdoor apparel business, you might target adrenaline junkies or adventurists. If your product is created from recycled goods, you’ll probably target people who are environmentally conscious.

A food blogger is going to target self-taught cooks, and a travel influencer will target people who love to explore new places.

Using your unique experience allows you to personalize your marketing message, which is crucial to building a loyal customer base.

So what do you value?

5. Choose your vertical

Which industry do you want to work with?

Even as a coach, I know there are certain industries I can get better results for. Mainly because I have direct experience with those industries. For example, dentistry, legal, SaaS, marketing agencies, etc.

Niching down the industry you serve also allows you to be hyper-focused in your marketing. Chances are your marketing budget is limited. Do you want to waste it targeting anyone who needs your service or a select group?

To find your niche, answer this:

• What industry do you have experience in?
• Is it profitable?

Would you say this niche is an inch wide and a mile deep?

6. Tap into desires

What does your target audience want? What do they need?

Most customers know what they want, but they lack clarity on what they need.

For example, people wanting to get fit will be motivated by losing weight, getting a 6-pack, or having a bikini-body. That’s what they want.

What they need is someone to guide them, hold them accountable, keep them motivated when it gets hard, and instill health habits they can take with them throughout life.

Your niche wants something, but it may not be what they need.

I’ll give you another example. Someone may want to write a book. They’re doing it to establish their credibility and build their authority. But what do they need?

They need your guidance on how to monetize that book so it gets found by their niche.

So to determine your niche, ask yourself, what desires can you tap into?

7. Identify the problem you solve

Profitable businesses solve problems. What problems do your target customers suffer from, and what solution can you provide?

Not sure what that is. Try these three methods for identifying your niche’s problems.

• Speak to your existing customers. Whether you do this in a webinar, on sales calls, or through an email Q&A, their feedback is crucial to your marketing messaging. When I started using customer feedback to build sales pages, conversions increased exponentially. It’s worth building out a series of questions that naturally lead to each other.
• Industry forums where your prospects hang out. Reddit and Quora are great sources of information on your target market. Filter your niche and see what topics are being discussed and the problems your audience has.  
• Study the keywords your audience is typing into search engines and on social media. You can use AHREFS and Google Trends to find your niche-related keywords. Use these to build out emails, thought pieces, and social media posts.

For example, say you work with business owners who want to get PR coverage. They just don’t want to pay an agency thousands of dollars, they want to try to pitch themselves.

You could create a course that shows them exactly how to get featured in the press. In it, you’d add trainings from PR experts and journalists, as well as pitching templates and a list of media to target.

That’s incredibly valuable to someone. Use the tips above to zero in on the problem you solve.

8. Are there trends you can jump on?

ChatGPT, medical cannabis, cryptocurrencies, and AI are all examples of great trends that you can use to build a powerful business.

Specializing in a specific platform is also a great way to build a business.

For example, Matt Barker is a LinkedIn Content Creator who built a 6-figure ghostwriting business teaching people how to use LinkedIn to find business.

Every single one of his posts gets hundreds of comments and thousands of likes. Anyone promoting LinkedIn gets a handy boost from the social channel because they want more people to use it.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create a profitable business. You just need to look at the market and ask yourself, how can I do this differently?

And that's how to find your niche. Now let’s look at a few examples of businesses that weren’t afraid to niche down.

For more ways to find your target audience, check out this article - Defining your target audience.

4 Benefits of finding a niche you can dominate

Personal fulfillment

You get to wake up every morning and look forward to going to work. So many people live for retirement, a chance to finally enjoy life. I don’t want to wait until I’m in my 60s to experience the best life has to offer, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. Choose a career that excites you.

That might start with listing what you don’t want your life to look like. In a separate column, list your ideal work life.

For example:

• I want to have a view of the forest
• I only want to work four hours a day
• I want to be able to take an overseas holiday once a year.

You get the idea.

Financial freedom

Provided you’ve chosen a profitable niche, you can make a lot of money doing far less than you are now. When I pivoted into business coaching, initially, I was charging $500 a month per client. Now I charge $6,000 per month.

I work less and make more. That’s the power of choosing a profitable sub-niche.

Brand awareness

Building your personal brand in a competitive niche is no easy feat. But carving out a space for yourself in a sub-niche that’s underserved is a clever way to build your authority.

Social proof is vital to cementing your personal brand. Try this:

1. Identify a list of podcasts and publications you’d love to be featured in. Use a mix of well-known and up-and-coming.
2. Ideate potential topics that you could share with their audience. Start with about ten.

Pitch these ideas to the publications. Particularly with regard to blogs, you don’t need to be a credible authority to be featured in the press. If you’ve got an interesting story or unique perspective to share, that’s enough to get you free media coverage.  

Long-term customer relationships

Contrary to popular belief, the fastest way to increase wealth is not to find more customers. That takes time and moolah. If you want to scale quickly, get your existing customers to buy more often.

I’ve had customers follow me, from my IT business to my telecommunications company, to my marketing consultancy. The key, I’d invested time and effort into building and nurturing those relationships. They trusted me, and you can’t put a price tag on trust.

Having long-term relationships make launching new products a guaranteed success. How do you think so many first-time business authors get on to the bestseller list? They have a loyal database of customers.

Why your niche and marketing business plan go hand in hand

Marketing is never done. It’s an iterative process. That’s why I created the 1-Page Marketing Plan template. It’s meant to be a living document that you update and add to as you get better information about your niche market.

• What influences their buying decisions?
• What messages do they respond to?
• What media do they consume?
• How can you surprise and delight?
• Do they prefer to engage with you via email or on social media?
• What products or services are they interested in purchasing?
• Do they respond well to stories?
• Are testimonials crucial in helping them to make a purchasing decision, or do you just need to get them on the phone?
• When are they more likely to buy?

Knowing the answers to these questions is crucial to crafting a marketing plan that gets results and scales your business. So make sure you’re spending time with your niche.

7 Examples of potential niches

1. Go Nomad

Niche: Business Travel

Sub-niche: digital nomads

Are you a digital nomad in search of your next adventure? What if you could travel to the unusual, unknown, or unexpected? Maybe, discover a little town in the middle of nowhere rather than a bustling city. Go Nomad helps digital nomads find a place to live. Travel writers can make money crafting articles for this site, and in turn, they help nomads find their next home. It’s a niche that ranks highly.

2. Knees Over Toes Guy

Niche: Health & Fitness

Sub-niche: knee strength

Got a knee problem? Ask the knee-over-toes guy. People all over the world struggle with knee problems, especially as age kicks in. Those once well-oiled hinges now squeak and creak.

Before you search for a knee specialist, you’ll probably type how to improve your knee strength in Google, and you’d land on this guy. He has almost a million Youtube subscribers. That’s a lot of eyes on his videos. If you try his tips and you notice a difference, you’re going to trust him to get you results. It’s a niche that’s an inch wide and a mile deep.

3. We Shoot Bottles.com

Niche: Photography

Sub-niche: Bottle Manufacturers

Can’t get more specific than that business name. We Shoot Bottles is a photography company in the U.K. As you may have guessed, they take photos of bottles for a living. If you’re someone who manufactures bottles you could scroll through hundreds of photographers trying to find a good fit, or you’d contact these guys to photograph your stuff because it’s what they do. Specificity sells. So be specific in your niche.

4. Miss Excel

Niche: Business

Sub-niche: excel for small businesses

You’ve just been promoted to manager, and now you need to track budgets. That requires Excel, only you don’t know how to use it. You could purchase an expensive course or watch Kat Norton dance across your screen while teaching you how to do things with Microsoft Excel.

It’s fun, entertaining, and helpful. Kat makes well over 7 figures selling Excel courses every year. She’s proof that you can take a seemingly boring niche and turn it into something exciting.

5. Remote Ok

Niche: Recruitment

Sub-niche: recruitment for remote workers

Tired of long work commutes? Want the freedom to do your job from home while wearing your superman pjs? You need a well-paying remote job.

You could look on LinkedIn, scroll through job boards, and reach out to your Network, but you’d have to sift through a bunch of job ads looking for in-house staff. Rather go to the place that only posts remote jobs. That’s Remote OK. It’s a smart way to find job talent and an ideal job.

6. The Legal Queen

Niche: Law

Sub-niche: Family law

Got a legal question. Hiring a lawyer is super expensive. Do you even know if they specialize in the field you need answers to? The Legal Queen specializes in divorce law. She’s built her following by answering the most common questions about divorce. It’s a very specific target market and does a great job. There are no bells and whistles. She doesn’t have fancy graphics or music. It’s just her answering questions, and it’s getting her a ton of new clients. So just answering common Q&As can get you new business.

7. Barehand Gloves

Niche: Health & Fitness

Sub-niche: apparel for weight lifters

If you lift weights, your hands take a beating. Raw, open blisters aren’t pretty, and they hurt. If only you had a pair of gloves. That’s where Barehand Gloves comes in. I actually bought a pair a while ago, so I know how much a pair of gloves can impact your lifting game. Again, don’t be afraid to choose a hyper-specific target market.

Common questions around niches

How do you know if you’re too niche?

It’s very rare that I’ve come across a business that’s too niche. You’d be surprised by the number of sub-niches that are doing incredibly well on Reddit. Businesses you’d never think of.

Start by looking at competitors. If there is healthy competition in your niche, you can be confident that it’s profitable. But if you’re the only one spearheading a niche, I’d be cautious. You may have no competition because there is no viable market.

Don’t be scared to test and pivot when necessary.

How do I know if there’s a viable market for my niche?

It comes down to research and knowing your numbers.

• Is there a demand for the product?
• Is it a profitable space?
• Is there a wide enough market to accommodate you as a new seller?
• Who is your direct competitor?

You want to stay away from products with low-profit margins and too little demand. Avoid customers that buy on price. Becoming a commodity business is a losing strategy.

Where do I research my niche audience?

Start with Facebook Groups, forums like Reddit and Quora, industry publications, and podcasts. See if there is a market for your product, and pay attention to the questions that are routinely raised.

Look for gaps in the market. Can you fulfill those customers’ needs?

How to gain insight into your niche customer with keyword research

Want to know what are the most popular questions your niche searches for daily? Use a keyword research tool like AHREFS or SEMRush. They’ll give you a list of frequently asked questions and the search volume for each keyword.

You can then use these keywords in your marketing efforts. Create webinars, blogs, social posts, and email sequences that deal directly with their pain points.

Can I have more than one niche?

I’m always impressed by business owners who have multiple niches. Provided you’ve not spread yourself too thinly, you absolutely can have more than one niche.

But if you’re just starting out in business, I’d advise that you dominate one niche before pivoting to the next. Remember, you have limited firepower (marketing dollars, resources, and time), so dividing your focus in the startup phase can affect your growth.

What you can do is have different segments within a target market.

For example, there are three segments that we work with. Business owners wanting to learn how to build a marketing plan purchase our course.

The next segment targets business owners doing between $500,000 and $30M who want to scale with marketing. We provide 1:1 coaching to this segment. Then we have people who want to become consultants, coaches, etc. They join our Certification program.

So, it’s totally okay to think of your target market in multiple segments. You might choose one small segment to focus on or work with 2 or 3 segments. It’s completely up to you.

How Do I Figure Out the revenue of my niche audience?

We get this question a lot and it's tricky because asking somebody who you don't really know exactly how much money they're making is a little awkward.

Instead, use proxy questions to give you a better understanding of how much money they're making.

For example you could ask, how many employees do you have?

If you have over 10 employees, there's a good chance that you have a good deal of revenue and you're hitting around the 700 to over a million mark. Obviously, it can be much higher at that point, but at least you have a better understanding.

Some other questions you can ask are:

• What's the volume of product that you're selling?  
• What's the quality and quantity of the service or product that you're selling?

I don't love the clients I currently Service. When do I switch niches?

Firstly, you don't want to burn bridges.

If the target market you're currently working with is bringing in more revenue, keep them for now. But start shifting the messaging of your promotional materials while you figure out the potential customers you want to work with.

Slowly test and treat this as a skunkworks until it's been validated. You can then begin transitioning those clients you don't enjoy working with out of your business.

Are you ready to determine your personal niche?

So many people get stuck on finding their niche because they want it perfect from the start. That rarely happens. Some of the most successful people I know got their start in very different businesses from the ones they run now.

I know I did. I thought I’d provide marketing consulting to corporates, but I hated it. Too much paperwork, too many reports, and meetings with stakeholders. Urg! Once I pivoted to small businesses, I was so much happier.

So don’t be afraid to experiment. Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. As long as you’re building relationships, you can always pivot.  

And most importantly, once you know what your niche is, invest in niche marketing. That's where your marketing plan comes into play. It's going to make connecting with, nurturing and converting leads to customers so much easier.

Use this framework to find your personal niche.

What is a prospect worth to you? More importantly, what would you be willing to spend to acquire that customer?

So many businesses' current marketing efforts focus on leveraging the power of digital marketing. I get it. I'm a tech geek. I absolutely love all the latest technology.

I have invested thousands of dollars in attracting leads through digital banners, blog articles, SEO, and PPC. I've spent hours connecting with and nurturing leads through social media, email marketing, and online webinars.

While these are all tried and trusted tactics for moving your ideal customer through the buyer journey, your competitors are doing the exact same thing.

They're investing all their time, energy, and budget into digital marketing.

To stand out, you need to do things differently. Because when you're dealing with high-value customers, the ones worth thousands of dollars, nothing beats old-school offline marketing. Whether you call it snail mail, physical mail, or direct mail, it delivers a wow experience and has a far higher success rate than online marketing.

If you want to stand out from your competitors and deliver an unforgettable customer experience, you need to invest in a surprise and delight package.

It needs to be an offer they can't resist keeping and acting on. But before we get into what that delight experience could look like, let's explain what surprise and delight marketing really is.

What is surprise and delight marketing?

Surprise and delight marketing focuses on doing the unexpected and reaping long-term customer loyalty as a result. It's all about delivering a personalized customer experience that's memorable and could lead to good PR.

When done right, it can take a cold lead and quickly turn them into a prospective customer. And it can transform an existing customer into a lifelong brand evangelist.

But really, the goal of this marketing strategy is to start a conversation and build a strong emotional connection with the customer. One which will compel them to reach out or pop down to your store and spend their dollars.

Some examples of delight strategies include direct mail packages, unexpected perks, special treatment, or personalized attention.

Why are surprise and delight strategies essential to customer satisfaction?

We're living in tough financial times. Job loss is at an all-time high. Markets are constrained. People are struggling to get by.

As a business, you need to go above and beyond the expected level of service to retain customer loyalty. Failure to delight customers will only lead to customer losses.

That's why I love using a surprise and delight campaign. It builds goodwill, enhances customer satisfaction, and costs very little.

Now you can go the digital campaign route. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But like I said, every other business in your market is leveraging online tech. I prefer to use a pattern interrupt.

Instead of sending another boring email, think bigger. I like to delight my customers with a shock-and-awe package.

Here's why it'll lead to greater brand loyalty:

1. It's Personal

Best of all, you can really leverage email to support your surprise and delight strategy.

Providing you've gathered personal information during the opt-in process, you can analyze that data and use your findings to deliver a tailor-made experience.

One that confirms your business cares about its customers and is committed to delivering unforgettable brand experiences.

2. It's Exciting

People love getting deliveries. There's something genuinely joyful about receiving a package in the mail and unboxing whatever's inside.

Remember, you want every interaction your customer has with your business to be delightful.

Create memorable experiences, and they're more likely to refer your business, especially if they know it will benefit their inner circle.

3. It's Unexpected

Picture this, a courier company arrives at your house with a package. You don't remember ordering anything, so initially, you're a little confused.

Then curiosity kicks in. You start to wonder what's inside the box. Now you're experiencing a kind of nervous anticipation as you open the box.

Finally, the big reveal. It's a massive surprise: a brand you know, and love has sent you a gift just because.

You're going to want to share that experience with friends. You're going to talk about it on social media. And you'll probably thank the business that spoilt you. Maybe you'll even spend a little more the next time you shop at their store.

Create experiences your audience can't wait to share with others.

4. It's Largely Untapped

How many brands are actually using direct mail to communicate with their customers?

Most stick to email and social media. And while there's nothing wrong with that, every other brand is doing the same thing.

Your customer's inboxes are overcrowded, and their lives are busy. If your email lacks pizzazz, it'll be relegated to the bin or spam folder.

In contrast, people's mailboxes are far less crowded than their email inboxes, so it's easier to delight customers.

5. It Shows You Appreciate Your Customers

Use this strategy to reward customers for doing business with your brand, or you can use it to show prospects you value your customers.

Don't be the business that only accepts withdrawals from their customers. Make small deposits like a surprise birthday voucher or an invitation to an exclusive launch. It's key to delighting customers.

Unlike other marketing strategies, surprise and delight marketing will lead to repeat business. It will also stimulate inbound leads because your customers are actively referring you.

But let's consider what you can include in your delight package to surprise customers and would-be customers.

Delight prospective customers with these 3 surprise tactics

79% of consumers act on direct mail immediately. That unexpected delight package your business sent to someone might take pride of place in their office, kitchen, or lounge. Emails, on the other hand, are easily forgotten.

I'll give you an example.

I celebrated my birthday a little while ago and received tons of emails and text messages from brands wishing me a happy birthday. While it did bring a smile, they were just wishes. And every single one of those messages was binned. I can't even recall who messaged me.

Had I received a birthday card or voucher on a nice, thick, textured card in the mail, I guarantee I wouldn't have been so quick to throw it away.

Knowing what to send in your surprise package comes down to understanding

1. the type of customer you're trying to attract,
2. what their potential lifetime value is,
3. and how much you're willing to spend to acquire that customer.

Remember, the purpose of a surprise and delight package is to start a conversation with cold customers or keep your brand top of mind with existing ones. Sales and marketing need to be aligned because if that consumer chooses to act on your delight package, your sales department needs to be ready to close the deal.

Right, so let's look at what you can send via mail.

1. Invest In A Handwritten Note

People don't write anymore. Everything is digitally printed. Don't get me wrong, digital notes can be beautiful, but there's something surprising about a handwritten note or letter.

It takes more time than typing something up on a computer, so it has a greater impact. It also says to a customer, you matter enough for me to personally write to you.

From my experience, after sending a surprise and delight note to a prospect, they've inevitably reached out to me via email or phoned the call center. And many of those conversations lead to new customers.

To recap:

• Handwritten notes cost little in terms of time and money.
• It's something that you can hire an assistant to handle or outsource to a service provider to help you with.

2. Send A Postcard

A lot of business owners understand lead nurturing via email and using things like autoresponders. I've used them myself, and it's very powerful. But what if you could take a multimedia approach?

Instead of just emailing, you'd send text messages and follow up with a monthly postcard to your customers. That's bound to delight.

But before I get into what message your surprise and delight postcard could include, I want to share the story of Joe Gerard.

He's in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's top salesperson. Joe sold an average of 2.5 cars every day for over 14 years. It wasn't unusual for Joe to have six people scheduled to view the dealership's cars every day.

So how did he do it? With a simple postcard strategy. Every prospect he met and customer he sold to would receive a surprise and delight postcard in the mail every month. It created an emotional connection and allowed him to position himself as a friend and trusted advisor.

You could use this to promote a special event, such as a VIP night for loyal customers or a secret sale. Use surprise and delight tactics to create a sense of exclusivity and make customers feel special.

Now, what could you expect to pay?

Including printing and postage, you're looking at roughly $2 per customer. Over the year, that would amount to $24.

Really, it's cost-effective and an excellent part of your marketing process.

3. Surprise Your Customer With A Shock-And-Awe Package

One of my favorite ways to surprise and delight customers is with a care package. It's personal, unexpected, and tactile. You could include the following:

• A free sample of your product. If you have a physical product, giving consumers a chance to experience your product before they buy is incredibly powerful. It will fast-track sales.
• A book if you're a published author (especially if you're a business coach). I use my book to promote my services and knowledge. You can do something similar. It's a great way to pre-frame a prospective customer.
• Unusual stationery. I have a metal business card, but you could send a really nice pen or leather-bound notebook.
• Personalized stationery. You want to send something with their name on it, not yours. Because it's all about your prospect and making their life better. Not your own. A florist might courier an orchid contained within a handcrafted vase. An e-commerce site selling ceramic pottery could send a beautiful mug with the prospect's name printed on thick card. It'll make an impression. I once received a fridge magnet. It's small but incredibly useful.
• A discount voucher. It doesn't have to be something massive like 50% off, but if you got a buy one get one free voucher which could only be redeemed in-store, chances are you'd travel 15 miles to get your delight freebie. The sample applies to most consumers. They'll go out of their way if they believe they're getting something free. And they might even land up spending more. It's a win-win situation. They get something new at a discounted rate, and you make a sale you might not have.

I'll give you an example of how I used a shock-and-awe package in my telecommunications company (this was many years ago). For high-value prospects, my team would send a mini trash can filled with fake money.

The purpose was to show that staying with their current telecommunications company was costing them money. If they signed with us, they'd be saving big. Included in our surprise and delight package was a copy of the contract ready for them to sign.

It cost about 20 dollars and resulted in many deals. Even if those prospects didn't sign, it got their attention and garnered chatter online.

If you're stuck on ideas of what gifts you could send, check out Giftology by John Ruhlin. This book covers exactly how to boost revenue, increase retention, and cut churn with the power of surprises.

Next, I want to discuss when it makes sense to send a shock-and-awe package.

When should you use shock and awe tactics?

In my opinion, the shock and awe or surprise and delight package makes sense in a few scenarios.

1. When the customer is worth a lot. Depending on the type of package you send, it can become costly. So you might want to limit your surprise and delight tactics to high-value prospects. Surprise and delight packages are a great way to micro-manage a relationship with people you want to do business with and whose attention you want to get. Every customer who becomes a coaching client receives two copies of my book, a handwritten note, and my metal business card. No matter where in the world they're based, I religiously send these packages.
2. When you want to move the prospect up the buying cycle. It can help you skip several steps in the buying cycle, especially in the rapport-building phase. Especially if you own a coaching business or you offer some sort of software, enticing your customers to invest in the business suite as opposed to the entry-level could be as simple as sending a monthly card.
3. When you want to rekindle interest in a product. Imagine you've gone to the checkout of an e-commerce site. You were looking at lighting equipment and made it to checkout, but for whatever reason, you abandoned the cart. You can use a business like Postpilot to pull that data and send that customer a postcard voucher with 15% off their next purchase. With an 8.6% conversion rate on abandoned cart follow-up emails. It's worth investing in.

Can social media and email fuel your offline marketing strategy?

Absolutely. I mentioned early that a great surprise and delight experience would produce good publicity for your brand.

Some of your customers will share their brand experience on social media. Your goal is to leverage user content to further promote your brand.

User-generated content is vital to marketing your business. You're not telling social media followers to like your brand or buy your product. You're sharing content created by customers who bought your product or service and loved it. It could be a testimonial or just a happy smiling face, but it says to the larger community that you can be trusted.

If you are going to use this type of content, you need to get user consent before sharing the posts on your social media channels.

Hosting an online giveaway is another way you can use social media to fuel your offline marketing strategy. You can direct customers to opt-in via your website, comment on the social post, or send you a DM with their personal contact information.

Then you can randomly select a few winners and create the ultimate delight experience.

Just be sure to clearly state the terms and conditions. If the post is directing them to a competition page, make sure you add a privacy policy.

Follow-up email conversations with a gift that delights. Use your CRM to track user engagement. If you notice that a customer hasn't opened your emails in a while, you can follow up with a surprise and delight gift in the mail. It doesn't need to be big. It just needs to get their attention and rekindle their interest in your emails.

The same goes for a sales conversation where the prospect needs time to think. Go into your CRM, pull their customer information, and put together a surprise and delight package that can help them to make a decision.

Start strategizing your direct mail campaign and get ready to delight customers

Marketing your brand isn't easy. Competition is stiff, and your budget is likely tight. You could focus your efforts on online marketing, or you can invest in direct mail. Not only is it massively neglected, but it delivers the ultimate brand experience.

Just remember that your surprise and delight package doesn't have to be big and flashy. Consider the type of customer you're trying to convert, and use that information to inform how much you spend on them.

If you're in the airline business and you're looking for investors, I reckon you'd spend in the tens of thousands. But if the average lifetime value of a customer is $100,000, look to spend a couple hundred or thousand dollars on them.

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Nobody reads emails anymore. You should be on TikTok or Instagram.

If that’s true, I shouldn’t have been able to 3x my monthly revenue. But I did, and it wouldn't have been possible without email marketing.

Email is key to a successful inbound marketing strategy. While social media posts, lead magnets, and SEO blog articles are necessary for attracting your ideal audience, email is where you'll get to know your prospects, build those all-important relationships and convert them into customers.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start by unpacking what inbound marketing is. If you already know, skip ahead.

What is inbound marketing?

We marketers love to throw around terms like inbound marketing, but for most business owners starting their marketing journey, we might as well be speaking gibberish.

Inbound marketing is the process of creating content that attracts your ideal business lead and delivering tailored experiences that convert them into life-long customers. It focuses on building trust and forming connections with people searching for solutions to a specific problem that only you can fix.

On the other hand, outbound marketing interrupts your customers with content they didn’t ask to see, for example, a television commercial. This can be met favorably (if the advertisement entertains or offers an incredible deal) or with frustration.

Why email marketing?

1. It’s trackable. CRMs compile data on all your subscribers and the emails you send. You can see which email marketing campaigns performed well, which subject lines tanked, and what content your readers want more of. Knowing your numbers will guide your email strategy.
2. It’s instantaneous. As 46% of smartphone owners prefer to receive email communications from businesses, you can touch base with a customer quickly.
3. You can automate your email marketing. You’re no longer location-based. Now you can serve customers around the world without having to invest more time.
4. You can personalize your emails.
5. You control it. Unlike social media and advertising, no one can tell you what you can and can’t say via email. Your account can’t be banned. As long as you have your customers' contact details, you’ll always be in touch.
6. A/B testing allows you to routinely improve your marketing message. You might find video outperforms text. Or that short-form emails outperform long-form. But you’ll only know if you test your theories.

These are just six ways that email can fuel your overall inbound strategy. But why inbound email marketing and not outbound?

Inbound email marketing vs Outbound email marketing

Personally, I prefer inbound email marketing because I know that everyone on my email list is a qualified lead and potential customer. Whether they read my book, heard me on a podcast or at a speaker event, or typed into Google, “marketing plan for small businesses,” they were actively looking for ways to improve marketing their business.

By opting into my email list, I can confidently send them information about my products and services.

In contrast, outbound email marketing targets cold leads. This happens when you buy email lists. You’re actively connecting with people who haven’t expressed interest in your products or services.

By sending unsolicited mail, you run the risk of upsetting these leads, which could negatively impact your business reputation.

There are other reasons why inbound marketing is superior and I’ve broken it down for you in the table below:

So, how can email marketing fuel your overall inbound strategy?

1. Successful Email Marketing Attracts Higher Quality Leads

Something like 80% of small businesses think targeting everyone will lead to more sales. It won’t because everyone is not your target audience.

Inbound marketing zeroes in on your niche audience without costing you a kidney on the black market. All you need to do is solve your customers' problems better than your competitors, and you’ll attract an invested lead. Someone who will eventually buy.

I like to use a cornerstone piece of content to get my ideal customer to self-identify. I have a book, but you can use a series of webinars or Youtube videos, blog posts, infographics, a podcast, an ebook, or a course.

Educate and provide value in advance, and you’ve already established your authority. Because they know you can help them, you’re someone they want to keep hearing from. By adding a prospect to your newsletter, you can keep in touch and nurture that relationship.

That’s why email needs to form part of your marketing strategy.

Make sure every piece of content you produce includes a call to action. It can be to

• opt-in to your newsletter
• download a free template
• join a webinar session

Gate it so you can capture their details.

Need help dominating your niche. Check out this 8-step process to niching down.

2. Inbound email marketing guarantees an engaged audience

Remember, an inbound strategy isn’t about coercing leads into joining your email list. These are organic leads that found you as a result of your content marketing strategy.

You answered their questions, and they believe you can help them.

Use your email marketing to get to know them better and share your story. I use an email welcome sequence.

• Introduce yourself. Keep it brief.
• Ask your prospective customer a question. Mention that you’re genuinely interested in learning more about them. I’ve had great feedback from email subscribers.
• Link to a free resource to cement their goodwill.  

Humans like to do business with people they like. By actively showing interest in your audience, you open a two-way conversation. To enhance your emails

• Share anecdotes your readers can relate to. You decide how personal you get, but don’t be scared to own your failures and celebrate your successes.
• Add personality to your writing. I know of a writer who’s blunt and borderline rude, but his writing is compelling. He won’t appeal to everyone, but for some customers, he’s just what they need.
• Stick to plain text. Forget about fancy templates for your email marketing. People want to feel like they’re getting a text message from a close friend.
• Use an email super signature to promote some of your products and encourages readers to respond to you.

3. A solid inbound strategy delivers value and builds trust

There’s that word again: value. Let’s make it your intention word for 2024. Your email marketing needs to educate, entertain, and above all, deliver value.

There will always be people who just want to tap the source for free. But there are many more that need you to demonstrate your expertise. They want to put your advice into action. And if they get a result before they buy, you’ll have earned their trust.

4. It allows you to segment your audience

Why segmentation? Well, how many products do you have?

Say you’re a software company. You might have an entry-level product, a premium, and an unlimited version. Big businesses with bigger budgets won’t be interested in the entry-level package. That’s designed for solopreneurs and small businesses. Corporations would probably purchase the unlimited version.

That’s why you need to segment your emails.

According to the Barilliance, segmented emails generated one-third of all email revenue. It is the most effective strategy for email marketing campaigns. But, if you’re not speaking to each segment's pain points, you’ll lose their interest.

Segmented emails improve engagement, increase sales, and deliver a higher ROI and a better click rate.

5. Inbound marketing delivers personalized content

Every day, over 306 billion emails are sent to customers across the globe. Inboxes are flooded with messages from brands, business coaches, retail companies, and service providers trying to convince consumers to purchase their products or services.

Many will land up in SPAM filters. Others will be binned due to a sucky subject line or marketing offer. But a select few will cut through the noise and be opened.

It may be because they used the reader’s name or made a controversial opinion. Success comes down to knowing your audience and delivering personalized experiences.

In fact, a report from McKinsey&Co found that 71% of customers expect personalized experiences, and three-quarters of customers get angry when you don’t personalize.

Being likable starts by giving a damn. And email marketing is one of the best mediums for building personalized relationships with prospective customers. It easily allows you to get to know your subscribers.

• What business they’re in?
• What challenges they’re facing?
• What products do they like?
• How do they make their purchasing decisions? For example, do they like to read customer reviews or ask questions?
• Their goals
• Name, age, physical location, marital status.

With this information, you can segment your list in a CRM and tailor your content to your prospect. You can also use past purchases to personalize future emails.

This will improve customer retention, increase goodwill and referrals, and ensure customer loyalty.

If you want your customers to see your name and open your email, you need to invest time into getting to know them and delivering tailored experiences.

6. Emails are great for reactivating or re-engaging dormant customers

So many businesses are stuck in a cycle of only trying to acquire new leads. It’s costly and time-consuming. What about your existing customer base?

When last did you engage your past customers?

There’s a boatload that stopped buying and just need a gentle nudge to part with their hard-earned cash. But if you don’t give them any attention, why would they give you their money?

As long as you’ve built a customer database, you owe it to yourself to reactivate dormant customers.

A successful email marketing strategy includes a reactivation campaign at least once or twice a year.

Track your email data long enough, and you'll notice that open rates and click-through rates vary. Drill down to an individual level, and you'll find that a subscriber who actively engaged with your emails for the first few months now only opens one in 12 emails.

Why? Perhaps they joined another list, and suddenly they couldn't keep up with all the emails in their inbox. Or circumstances in their lives have changed. Maybe they're in financial difficulty. Or they began a new job.

Either way, your email marketing won't always resonate with your customers.

Re-engaging dormant customers with email

• kick-starts a two-way conversation.
• helps you cull your email list so you can keep costs down.

7. Respond to abandoned carts

According to stats from the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment is roughly 70%.

7 out of 10 consumers don't complete their purchase.

Perhaps they received a client phone call they had to take. Or their kid needed help on a school project. Maybe they wanted to get free shipping and needed to spend a little more to qualify.

Whatever the reason, they were interrupted during the purchasing process, and if they're not 100% committed, they'll forget all about it.

But you can rekindle their interest with a simple reactivation email campaign. It could be a gentle reminder that they've still got products sitting in their basket. Or a brief email asking if they're still interested in the product or service they were reviewing.

Using this email marketing strategy is an excellent way to get customers to reconsider their decision.

8. You can use email to launch and sell new products

Each year, people wait in queues for hours to be the first to get their hands on the new Samsung phone or iMac computer. They do this because they already trust the brand and know the quality they deliver. That's the power of an invested customer base.

Think back to the last time you bought something from a brand you've never tried.

I bet you spent a lot more time researching it, reading reviews, speaking to the salespeople, and mulling over whether or not to buy. It was a much harder decision.

But, with email marketing, your subscribers already know and like you. They're invested in what you're selling. And they trust you not to screw them.

So even if you're in the beta phase of a product build, they're more willing to take a chance on it.

As a bonus:

• You get sales very quickly.
• You can use the beta product launch as a chance to get valuable customer feedback and optimize your product before you take it to market.

Once a week, I send two emails that educate or engage and one that sells. According to SaleCycle, 50% of people buy from marketing emails once a month. Now I get roughly 1,500 new email subscribers each month. So if half buy, I’m generating a solid return on investment. And you can too.

When finalizing your email strategy

• make sure you’re providing more value than hard-sell emails. If every email sells, you’ll quickly irritate your readers and they’ll unsubscribe.
• decide how many emails you’ll send a week and set a time, so your customers know when to expect hearing from you. For example, I email my list on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10am.
• repurpose content as much as possible. If you had an email that performed really well, think about how you can change it up. Remember, most people won’t remember reading something that you sent three to six months ago.

9. Email is a great way to increase web traffic

There's no point in creating content if you don't have a distribution strategy, and email forms a key element of that plan.

You can use email to update your subscribers on a blog post you recently wrote, a webinar you're hosting, or a podcast you've released.

You're actively driving traffic to your website. This surge of interest in that piece of content can lead to content shares on social sites, which encourages backlinks from relevant websites.

It opens other opportunities for your business. For example, you may be asked to contribute thought-leadership pieces to other publications or be invited to speak on an industry podcast.

Grow your web traffic with inbound email marketing, and you can scale your business quicker.

Start building your inbound marketing strategy

Email should fuel your inbound strategy. It's not going away. And while you can sink more of your marketing budget into platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok, you don't own them.

At least once a month, I hear of an influencer complaining about their account being hacked or blocked because of something they said. Literally, overnight they have lost access to their target audience. The people they've spent months, maybe years, building a trusted relationship with. Now they have to start from scratch.

Email guarantees that everyone sees your marketing message. Not just a small percentage. Unlike Facebook, you don’t have to pay to reach more people on your email list.  

So do the smart thing and prioritize email marketing in 2024. If you need help crafting better emails, check out this link.

We all want better clients, right?

Clients that take action, get things done, and get incredible results in the process.

The question is, how can you find these perfect clients?

In this article, we’re going to walk you through how to use Scorecard Marketing to attract the very best clients who are eager to work with you and take action.

Ideal clients

All clients are different, and their businesses are often unique. This makes targeting your ideal clients extremely difficult. Especially if they:

• Are spread across different niches
• Have completely different goals
• Have different sets of challenges

Oftentimes, you might speak to potential clients on the phone, and you might know very little about them. You or your team will have to ask a lot of questions to establish whether or not they are the right fit for you and whether you can help them.

The only problem with this is that it takes time.

Let's look at the numbers…

Let’s say you have 10 sales calls booked for the week ahead.

• 2 people don’t show up for the sales call
• 3 people don't have the right budget
• 2 people aren’t ready to buy your service
• 1 person feels like they’d be too demanding and hard work
• 2 people buy from you

80% of your time would lead to nothing. Only 2 out of 10 people become a client.

Yes…this is pretty scary, but it’s also quite common for sales teams.

This is exactly why you need to understand your potential clients better before you speak to them.

What is Scorecard Marketing?

Scorecard marketing allows you to assess your clients before you work with them (or even speak to them). This puts you at a unique advantage going into a sales call.By using a Scorecard, you can ask your prospect specific questions about them and their business to help you determine who is a good fit and who isn’t.It works for a number of reasons:

1. It shows that you care about doing business with the right people, which builds trust
2. It allows you to filter out the good leads from the bad, which saves you time
3. It makes your prospect more committed because they have to spend a little time thinking and answering your questions

Ultimately, it puts you back in control of the conversation and gives you some vital data about your leads. This makes your sales conversations much more meaningful.

Wait…why would a prospect take a scorecard?

The reason Scorecards work so well is because your prospects get a reward for taking part.

As the name suggests, Scorecards allow your audience to get a SCORE when they take part.

• They answer a series of quick questions that tell you about them and their current situation
• They get a score based on their answers so they can see how knowledgeable they are
• You get lots of interesting data that you can talk about when you speak to them

Some of the questions you ask will allow you to score the person on their knowledge, and some of the questions will be for you and your sales team to establish how qualified they are to work with you.

Our Marketing Scorecard

We actually built our own scorecard called The Marketing IQ quiz, which helps our visitors uncover the missing pieces in their business and optimize for exponential growth. This scorecard is great for lead generation and pre-qualification.

As humans, we all love to score ourselves. We love trivia quizzes and game shows because we get to test our knowledge. We obsess over sporting events that are all based on scores and winning. We all want to be the best and know the most so we can feel proud of ourselves.

This is why scorecards and quizzes work so well. They tap into that deep routed need for validation and accomplishment. Let's make sure we allow our customers to scratch that itch.

How you can build your own scorecard

Now that you know why Scorecard Marketing works so well, now’s the time to make a quiz for your business. There are four parts to the perfect quiz/scorecard, which we’ll walk you through below.

1. Concept

Ask yourself, how do you help people to achieve their goals, or what do your services allow people to do?

• If you’re a fitness trainer, it might be to “lose weight.”
• If you’re a marketing agency, it might be to “Become more visible online.”
• If you’re a financial advisor, it might be to “Retire early.”

You can use these goals as the name or concept for your scorecard.

Using the financial advisor example, you could say, “Discover your financial freedom score. Answer these 10 questions and find out when you’ll be able to retire.”

This kind of scorecard works well because it presents an end goal that you know your audience are trying to accomplish.

2. Landing Page

Your scorecard landing page is very important. Even if your audience already know, like and trust you, you still need to present them with a clear and obvious benefit for them to take the scorecard.

Using a nice clean design with some compelling copy is good enough to get your visitors to begin your scorecard and start answering your questions.

3. Questions

Your scorecard questions could be broken down into two categories.

• Questions that help you score your audience so they can test their knowledge
• Questions that help your team understand more about the person and how qualified they might be to work with you

All of the questions you ask should be simple and easy to answer so that you don’t lose people’s interest along the way.

Consider asking questions that will help you determine who is the best fit for your business. These kinds of questions can help with that:

• How much do you spend on marketing/coaching/development at the moment?
• How many team members do you have?
• What’s your current turnover?
• What’s your target turnover next year?

Using the answers to these questions, you’ll be able to see who is more able to afford your products and services and who might struggle.

4. Results Page

Once someone has completed your scorecard, you take them to a results page. Your scorecard results page allows you to do two things really well.

1. You provide information about a person’s score and how well they did
2. You provide valuable insights and resources to help them improve their situation

Based on the person's score, you can now present specific content that’s relevant to them. This means you can add different content and advice if someone scores lower vs higher vs somewhere in the middle.

If you use the results page to educate your audience and improve their knowledge, they will feel more empowered, and they’ll be more likely to take action.

Having all four parts of a scorecard will allow you to craft the perfect lead generation and qualification tool. Using quiz software like ScoreApp, you can build your entire scorecard quickly and easily.

Back to the sales call

Having someone go through the scorecard first before a sales call, means:

• They are more likely to attend the call because they have received some value first
• They’ll be more eager because they feel empowered and ready to get started
• They probably won’t have as many questions because you’ve already provided some education as part of the scorecard
• They’ll trust you so much more going into the sales call because you’ve taken the time to explore their challenges, needs and goals

Overall, scorecards make the sales process much easier and more efficient for everyone.

Should you use a scorecard within your sales process?

After reading this article, I’m sure you can see how beneficial it would be to include a scorecard as part of your sales process.

Scorecards allow you to gather vital data from your prospects whilst building trust at the same time. It’s the perfect tool for anyone who’s looking to attract the best quality clients that have the right budget and take action.

If you want to build a scorecard for your business, try ScoreApp. They offer a 14-day free trial, and they have over 20 pre-built templates to speed up the process.

If anyone ever told you that you'd never be a great writer, I want you to write those words down on a piece of paper. Then burn it or throw it in the garbage and wipe it from your memory. We're starting afresh, and you're going to use these writing tips to craft copy that influences and sells.

I know this works because I was once told I didn't have the talent for writing too — that I should stick to computers. Well, I certainly showed Mrs. Starr. Twenty years on, I'm a bestselling author, turning words into dollars for a living.

And you can too.

But to be clear, I'm not going to show you how to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel or use flowery language. That's not my specialty.

I'm going to show you how to influence people with your writing. How to get them to do what you want them to do. Whether that's purchasing a product or responding to your post is up to you.

Just make sure you apply this writing advice to your emails, blogs, social media posts, sales pages, and web copy.

So are you ready to sharpen your writing skills?  

Watch the live training now, or read on.

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What is influential writing?

Influential writing is the ability to get people to do something with words. It could be purchasing your product, joining your email list, attending a webinar, or responding to your social media post. It's a skill that people pay thousands of dollars for.

And guess what, you don't need to go to university to learn how to write well. I didn't. I dropped out in my second year of college and never looked back. In fact, I've learned more from reading books and attending online courses than I ever would have at university.

If you want to be successful in business and marketing, you need the right words. But finding them can often lead to page fright. I'm going to show you how to get past your fear of writing.

3 ways to combat writer’s block or what I like to call page fright

Seth Godin once said, “People talk about writer’s block, but you never hear a plumber say I’ve got plumber’s block.”

I prefer to call it “page fright.” You sit down to write a book, email, or blog, but the words won't come. Instead, you're left staring at a blank page or a blinking cursor.

It's not that you don’t know what to write. You're just afraid that what you'll write won't be good enough. You fear writing the wrong words. When you do eventually pluck up the courage to start typing, you'll find yourself deleting entire sentences and paragraphs again, and again, and again.

And before you know it, the day's gone, and you've got nothing. I want to help you kick writer's block to the curb. So I'm sharing my top three tips that I personally use to combat it.

As I’m hardly ever at a loss for words, I'd encourage you to try this advice.

1. Build a SWIPE file

One of the things that I do to combat writers' block is to keep a SWIPE file. A SWIPE file is a vault of inspirational content.

Whenever I see a sales page, turn of phrase, subject line, headline, or something attention-grabbing, I’ll take a screenshot or copy the web page down and save it to my SWIPE file.

And I use it for inspiration when I need to come up with an intriguing email subject line. The key is not to copy. You want to use their words as thought-starters.

I genuinely believe you become a better writer by reading more and paying attention to what's said. So get building your SWIPE file.

2. Copy until the right words come

Did you ever see the movie Finding Forester? If not, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's about a young man who has a gift for writing, but to unlock his creativity, he first uses the words of another author. From there, the story becomes his own. Many great writers used this old-school writing hack to get past their book-writing fears.

Here's how you can apply it to your writing.

Before you begin, set yourself ten minutes to get your creative writing juices flowing. Start by copying the words of another author. Within minutes you'll notice they're sparking new ideas. Once you're in the writing zone, that's the time to shift to creator mode.

It's a very powerful technique, but use it wisely.

You can't copy other people’s work and pass it off as your own. That's plagiarism. Rather, I want you to use it as a guide. Then once you've completed your written piece, you can go back and delete the copied bits.

Need inspiration?

Gary Halbert is one of the greatest sales writers; you can find his newsletters online. I'd encourage you to check them out. It'll give you insight into how great words and copy are written.

3. Write drunk. Edit sober.

Give yourself permission to suck. Many writers will tell you that the magic happens in the edit. That is your chance to cut verbose copy and craft sentences that pack a punch.

If you fixate on writing a perfect draft, you're only going to land up frustrated. It's also why I recommend you don’t write and edit simultaneously. Get your words and thoughts out first, and let it suck. Then use the editing phase to refine your writing.

Try this tip.

Imagine you have to pay money for every word you write. You'd want to make each word count. So you'd think about how to shorten your sentences to create more impact with fewer words.  

If you can write a sentence in 8 words instead of 18, that dramatically increases the effectiveness of your writing.

Write too many words, and you run the risk of your message getting lost. So don't be shy to slice and dice.

Next, let's look at my top tips for writing well. And this can be used for writing a book, blog, social media post, sales page, whatever.

How to write well: 12 tips for writing an influential blog, book, or story

I've taken writing courses and workshops. I've listened to podcasts that teach how to write well. And I read a lot. Over the years, I've honed my writing skills. I've seen what works and what doesn't, and these are my top writing tips:

1. To become a better writer, you need to read good writing

It's as simple as that. Read good writing as often as you can. Any book by Dan Kennedy, David Olgivy, or Gary Halbert are top of my list. I'd also recommend Laura Belgray's The Copy Cure. She's a master storyteller, and as she earns a million dollars writing emails for a living, you could learn a lot from her.

Also, don't be afraid to google “how to write well.” The internet is a treasure trove of great writing. Explore it.

2. Write it conversationally

There's a myth that serious work requires serious writing. For example, if you're a lawyer or accountant, you need to use jargon and convoluted words. You couldn't be more wrong.

Keep it conversational. Think about the types of books you read. Maybe you love a good crime novel. The writing is gripping, but chances are you're not hitting up your dictionary every five minutes to look up a particular word.

People respond to conversational writing far better than so-called professional speak. So forget sounding like an intellectual, and instead focus on crafting something compelling.

3. Give your writing personality

Every day I get emails from people all over the world. And the one thing they always mention is how much they love my writing. They relate to my sense of humor and self-deprecating tone. Many feel like they already know me.

That’s because my book is a genuine reflection of who I am. I don't take myself too seriously. I like to have fun. So write as you'd speak. Show your personality. It's what your audience is going to connect with.

4. Write your headline last

Speak to any writer, and they'll tell you that your headline is the most important written element. It attracts your target audience and compels them to take a deeper look. That's not to say the rest of the article isn't important. But if you write a brilliant guide and the headline's not great, your work won't get read.

Don't try to come up with a great headline before you've written your article or sales page. This is something I like to leave to last. The same goes for writing an email subject line.

Draft the outline. Write the content. Refine your words, then craft your headline.

Examples of great headlines:

• Amazing Secret Discovered by One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards to Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks and Slices…and Can Slash Up to 10 Strokes from Your Game Almost Overnight!
• How One Very Lucky Enron Exec Made $280 Million by Impregnating a Stripper, Destroying His Marriage, and Losing His Job
• Why I Stuck a Cracker Up My Cracker
• 12M Emails Analyzed - 10 Rules for an Effective Email Pitch

As sensational and clickbaity as these are, I want to know what happened. I’m going to click or open that newsletter to find out more.

Your writing doesn’t have to be over the top or outrageous, but you want it to create curiosity.

Top tip: Try to write up to 20 potential headlines for every piece of content you create. Most won't be great, and that's fine. Finding the one that connects and compels your reader to act is key.

5. Keep the focus on your reader

Great marketing focuses on the purchaser, not the seller. So if you want to make an impact with your words, your audience needs to see themselves in your writing. Sharing personal experiences they can relate to is super important, but so is using “you” and “your” as much as possible.

Don't write in the third person. That's best left to academic text.

I'll give you an example of third-person vs. second-person writing

"Most customers leave because a company did something wrong or they got a better deal. That’s often a symptom, but it’s not the cause. Apathy is the #1 reason why customers leave. Like any relationship, companies need to maintain it and feed it. If they don’t, the relationship goes bad, and they lose a valued customer."

Now, if I write this in first-person, it reads like this:

"Most customers leave because you did something wrong or they got a better deal. That’s often a symptom, but it’s not the cause. Apathy is the #1 reason why customers leave. Like any relationship, you need to maintain it. You need to feed it. If you don’t, the relationship goes bad, and you lose a valued customer."

In the first example, I could be talking to anyone. That means the reader can choose to see themselves in the story or not. But in the second example, I'm addressing the reader directly. The writing feels personal, and it forces the reader to place themselves within the story.

In this case, the reader needs to reflect on how their actions might affect the success of their business. But you can also use second-person writing to create excitement and convince your reader to take action.

6. Create a dual readership path

You get two types of readers: those who read every word and those who skim read. You want to write for both, especially when crafting long-form text. This is called a dual readership path.

It guarantees that even if people only read your headers, they'll still have a complete overview of what you're talking about. They can then drill deeper or decide to opt-in, purchase, download a lead magnet, or fill in a form.

For example, if you've read my book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan, you'll notice I have a headline every 500 to 600 words. This makes it very easy to skim read. In comparison, most books have a title chapter with very few headers. You're met with reams and reams of text. It's just not easy to read.

Don't do that. Follow my top tips for creating a dual readership path in your writing:

• Keep paragraphs between 300 and 600 words.
• Use headers to break up large chunks of writing and to pull skim readers back into the copy.

7. Use the grease slide methodology

The grease slide takes a person from one step to the next until they are ready to buy. Before writing a piece of content, you need to decide what is the one-single action you want your prospect to take.

Most marketing is confusing. Small business owners are notorious for writing ads that sell their features, benefits, how long they've been in business, their accreditations, and why they're better than the competition. This doesn’t work.

If I’m writing an ad, the only thing I want people to do is to click that ad. When they click, they might be directed to a landing page. Again, I have only one action I want them to do: opt-in. Then I'll trigger an email sequence that might promote my book or get them to download a framework.

I'm thinking about the one physical action I want them to take at any stage. So map out your sales funnel. Decide the one action you want your reader to take at every stage of your content journey.

Check out this article on direct response marketing. It will help you craft copy that gets your target audience to act.

8. Forget nuances

Don't be tentative in your writing. Use your writing to take a stance and tell people why this is the best option for them.

I don't know about you, but I like to read customer reviews before purchasing a product. I found that people tend to say, “Depending on your situation, this might be a better one.” That’s not what I want. I’m looking for an opinion on what I should do.

I don’t want you to be nuanced because I can get the data myself.

You need to have an opinion. It's a vital part of being a thought leader. People are coming to you for advice. They want to be led. So don't be afraid to tell them what to do.

9. Make it easy to read

Be honest with yourself. How often do you read a book? Once a week, month, or year? Maybe you haven't read a book since you left high school.

The key to writing well is not to overcomplicate it. You're not trying to win a Pulitzer prize, and your audience probably wouldn't read it if you did. So keep your writing style simple. I like to write at an eighth-grade level.

You can use the writing app, Hemingway, to test your writing. Just copy and paste your writing into the app, and it will tell you what writing level you're at.

10. Write in active voice, not passive voice

Active voice is decisive and confident. It creates a sense of urgency and inspires your readers to act.

For example, in an active voice, the subject performs the action. "I'm taking applications for the next round of certification."

But in a passive voice, the object is in the position of the subject. "The next round of certifications will be opened for new applications."

I'll give you another example:

"Do you want to join the coaching program?"

Asking a direct question demands a direct answer. It shows confidence that I know my worth and the value I deliver. This is compelling to a potential coaching client.

But if I were to flip it and write it in a passive voice, it would read like this.

"Is the coaching program something you'd be interested in joining?"

Immediately, I've lost that sense of urgency. This gives the prospect time to consider. Maybe it's not something that would interest them.

So try to avoid passive voice as much as possible. Use software like the Hemingway App or Grammarly to pick up passive voice and other grammar issues.

11. Choose clear language over cleverness

When you have the option to be clear or clever, choose clarity; it's much more powerful.

Often when we try to be clever, we'll add humor to our writing—for example, Enough of this Sheet. It doesn't actually tell me anything. Don't get me wrong, Coda's campaign certainly won over social media followers. But they also had to put a landing page together to explain the campaign.

Here's an example where I think the writer is trying to be clever:  

Does anyone understand what’s inside that book? What is a 365 vision? I have no idea how this book will create value in my life? Also, the modern writer's guide suggests that this book is only for writers.

What about if I wanted to get into writing? Does this disqualify me from reading it?

Here's an example of choosing clarity over cleverness:

Immediately, I know what this book is about: how to write better. It uses simple words and language. It tells me what it’s about and how it will improve my life.

Clearly conveying your meaning is a skill that will serve you very well.

12. Get Grammarly

One of the best decisions you can make is to invest in Grammarly. I'm a great writer, but my spelling and grammar are atrocious. I used to send emails to my list littered with spelling mistakes, and people would contact me to let me know.

This diminishes your trustworthiness because it's sloppy and easily fixed. So make sure that you spellcheck your writing. It takes a few minutes, but can be massively valuable to your business.

Another tip I like to use is voice editing. This can help you to cut unnecessary words or refine clunky sentences.

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Frequently asked questions on writing

Can you repurpose copy from a blog to social media or email marketing?

Absolutely. I re-use content all of the time. Here's what I like to do. Once a month, I'll host a live training. I record these sessions. Then my team takes the transcript and repurposes it into various media.

So one training can result in five to ten social media posts, one blog, two YouTube videos, and one or two emails.

The key is to curate your content for the platform. Find out what performs well, and ensure you write for that medium.

For example, X (formerly known as Twitter) works best as news blasts, Instagram does well with video content, and LinkedIn performs best with long-form posts. You can’t use a one-size-fits-all.

Should I edit as I go?

Personally, I like to get all of my thoughts onto a page before I begin editing. But my in-house content writer edits as she goes. She knows what she wants to say and how each paragraph will lead to the next before she begins writing because she’s already outlined her article.

Find what works best for you.

How do you protect your writing and intellectual property?

As your content (books, lead magnets, social media posts, emails, live trainings) get more popular, people will take advantage. They’ll breach copyright and pirate your stuff. It’s a problem, but it’s less of a problem than obscurity. If no one knows you, it’s a bigger problem.

In the beginning, certainly don’t worry about Dan from Downunder, who copied your viral social post and changed a few words to make it his own.

But if you find that someone is wholesaling your stuff, there’s a law in the US called DMCA. You can send their web host a DMCA notice to have it taken down. Visit DMCA.com to learn more.

Will AI replace good copywriting?

I just don’t see Jarvis.ai replacing good copywriting. AI isn’t there yet.

I’ve seen too many sites where they’ve fired the writers in favor of using AI, and the articles are terrible. The images used sometimes don’t even relate to the article, or they’ve picked the wrong subject. The writing is repetitive, and it reads like a machine wrote it.  

This just affects your brand perception, and you don’t want to do that.

Stories inspire, not words. So get good at writing copy. Use my writing tips to craft influential sales pages, books, courses, LinkedIn posts, and TikTok videos. It all counts.

Are you ready to use these top writing tips to build your influence?

If you want to craft good writing, you need to write more. Any chance you get, find-tune your writing talents. Post on social media. See what boosts engagement, and then double down your efforts.

Push fast forward on your email strategy. A/B test subject lines, video emails versus plain text, short- vs. long-form emails, and using emojis in your writing. Figure out what your audience responds to.

Use these writing tips as a guide, a starting point for honing your craft. And don’t be scared to invest in writing courses, but make sure they’re legit. Nowadays, anyone can create a course, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

Check out their customer reviews. Are they a recognizable authority? A simple Google search will suffice. If you notice there’s a ton of press from that authority, it’s probably a good investment.

Keep learning and keep writing.

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There's a common misconception that you need a team to build business systems. After all, as a solopreneur, you're so busy getting clients and delivering on promises that there's no time to document how it's done.

Besides, you know what needs to be done. And therein lies the problem. You're shackling yourself to your business. You need to get what's in your head on paper.

That's why I'm going to show you how to systemize a business as a solopreneur. It's not as tricky or time-intensive as you'd think.

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You need to start building business systems from day one.

But why, you ask? I like being a micro-entrepreneur. I have no intention of scaling my business and taking on employees.

You still need systems, especially if you don't want to manually create invoices each month. It's a time waste.

Most entrepreneurs and business owners put off systemization until they can afford to hire a systems champion to manage the process. But by then, you may have years of processes stored in your brain.

Think about how many hours you'll spend teaching someone else how to do what comes naturally. And when you do, make sure they document it. Otherwise, you'll be rehashing the same information month after month.

My suggestion: don't fall into this trap.

Systematizing your business will free up your time to focus on revenue-generating projects. It ensures you continue serving your clients to the level they expect while also ideating new products and charging forward with marketing your business.

Here's how easy systemizing your business is (and it doesn't take much time).

5 steps to systemize your solopreneur business

Step 1: Note your internal processes down

Identify and document what systems you need to create. Anything and every task you do regularly in your business, jot it down in an excel spreadsheet or Keynote.

Section it into marketing systems, sales systems, and administrative systems. This makes organizing the process that much easier.

Step 2: Get your process on camera

Every time you work on a new task, record an instructional video walking through each step. You can use Loom or Zoom. Verbalize what you're doing so there's no chance of confusion.  

This saves you a lot of time when you eventually do hire someone to help grow your company. Whether that's a VA, marketing coordinator, salesperson, or account manager, all you need to do is give them access to the videos so they can begin documenting the process.  

Step 3: Organize it

Remembering what you named your video six months ago isn't as straightforward as you'd think. Unless, of course, you have an eidetic memory. If not, here's what I suggest.

In your excel spreadsheet, give the task a name, and in a separate column, add a link to the instructional video. You can take it a step further and create folders in your database where you save these videos.

For example, if I were to build a process that automatically logs when someone from my email list registers for a live training, it might look something like this.

• Step 1: Create a standard SOP folder (here, I'll house all my standard operating procedures/business processes.
• Step 2: Create a sub-folder titled Marketing SOPs.
• Step 3: Within the Marketing folder, create an Email Marketing SOP folder.
• Step 4: Film the instructional loom video and save it within this folder. Give it a name like How to automate a 1-click Zap. Don't be clever. You want this to be easily searchable.
• Step 5: Open your SOP Excel spreadsheet and title your columns:
  • DEPARTMENT
  • FOLDER (where you will save it)
  • SUBJECT (the task name)
  • STATUS (if it's in progress, under review or approved. Leave it blank if it still needs to be done)
  • INSTRUCTIONAL DOC
  • HOW-TO VIDEO
  • DATE CREATED (you may find better ways of doing things, and this way, you know when a video is outdated and should be updated)
  • LAST UPDATED
  • NOTES (anything that could be helpful)
  • List the name of the video within its applicable column and hyperlink the text.

That way, when you or your new hire need to find anything, it's all neatly organized and accessible.

Step 4: Hire someone to execute

Now, this doesn't need to be a full-time employee. You could hire a VA for a couple of hours a month to help set up your business processes and free up your time. Ideally, you want them to review the video and translate it into a step-by-step how-to guide or what I like to call a Standard Operating Procedure.

They need to include visual references and a link to the video. And because your VA is learning as they document, there's no reason why they can't eventually take over the task saving you time.

When you are small, it's a great stepping stone for getting your systems built.

Step 5: Set up an administrative email

Create an email account for your future assistant even if you have no intention of hiring an employee. This could be general@companyname.com or support@companyname.com.

Get into the habit of using this email for scheduling, responding to general or account inquiries, whatever. By doing this, you won't have to separate these tasks later when you hire a VA.

Also, customers don't necessarily expect to hear from the founder or CEO regarding their accounts. Think about when you have a problem or are following up on a matter. Do you email the business owner directly or a support team?

Having that administrative email account ensures you won't have to worry about giving your new hire access to your personal email. Instead, you just give them the username and password for the support email address, and they can get started.

So that's how to systemize your business the solopreneur way.

The tools you need

These are the absolute bare minimum tools you need to build business systems. If you run an online business, you're going to need Google Workspace or something similar.

You want to be able to see all your operations and processes at once glance. So you'll need access to Word Docs and Excel Spreadsheets.

You'll need some kind of video recording tool. I use Zoom to record live trainings or webinars and Loom to record in-house instructional videos. You could also use Wistia.

‍Don't resist business systemization. Get it done.

Don't resist business systemization. Get it done.

Remember, systemization is not a scalability blocker. It's all about capturing what you're currently doing so you can eventually hand it off to someone else.

As your small business grows, you have to juggle many more balls. What was manageable with two clients can with five clients lead to you working 16-hour days. You don't want that.

Implementing business systems ensures you can delegate tasks that aren't a priority. You can create a system for writing a blog, hiring new employees, managing your social media accounts, building processes, and responding to a customer.

Systemize: it's a game-changer for your business.

For more great tips on business systemization, watch the video below.